


Owls, Mice and Robins

by hawkstout



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Brief character death, M/M, Street Kid Jason, Talon!Dick, alternate universe: Talon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkstout/pseuds/hawkstout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason witnesses a murder and runs for his life in the wrong direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Owls, Mice and Robins

**Author's Note:**

> So my hand is wrapped in a bandage and it’s gotten in the way of my typing so I’m doing a bunch of short fic prompts while I wait for it to heal so I can go back to my long fics. They’re all 500 words or less.
> 
> Ruein’s prompt:
> 
> JayDick, Talon!Dick, and Street Kid Jason.
> 
> Yessss. Haha this one is exactly 500 words.
> 
> Note: Jason’s thirteen and Dick’s probably sixteen or seventeen.

He had heard the old nursery rhyme sung by children, but Jason Todd was practical. There were enough monsters in Gotham without phantom Owls.

The mob, the cops, the rich, all of them watched as mice like him tore each other to shreds.

No Owls picked at their bones, so why should their warnings stop thirteen-year-old Jason from getting some dues?

He snuck into one of their towers. It was filled with cheese that the over fed cats wouldn’t miss.

“Bruce Wayne, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

Jason crept forward and watched.

Speak not a whispered word of them or they’ll send a Talon for your head…

Wayne begged to live.

His struggling stopped before he hit the ground. The murderer turned. Before he could run the killer, a boy like Jason, had cartwheeled in front of him and grabbed him with both hands by the jaw.

The Talon ran his thumbs over the corners of Jason’s lips.

“You were smiling,” The Talon explained. He seemed fascinated by Jason’s expression. Jason stood perfectly still. He met the killer’s eye.

“You should have run little mouse.” The Talon pushed him against the wall with one hand a knife was in the other.

“Because Owls eat mice?” Jason dared.

He knew since he was old enough to understand the world, he would die a bloody death. If it was in the hands of perfection who was he to complain? “Are you the type to play with your food?”

Behind the repression and neutrality there was a cruel sort of playfulness.

“I like birds.”

“You called me a mouse.”

“Hm, I wonder,” The Talon leaned in close. “Birds can fly. Can you fly?”

“Sure.”

“Confident,” A smirk, a memory. “Okay. Keep up and you don’t die little Robin Red Breast.”

He wanted to play.

The Talon broke away, and rather than trying to escape Jason followed. The Court’s servant didn’t go to the door; he sprang through the open window. They were on the tenth floor.

Jason paused on the ledge. The Talon had fallen and twisted to catch a flag pole, then propelled himself to a lower roof. Jason didn’t think. He didn’t bother with the flag pole trick. He backed up and took a running leap. He landed hard. The Talon did a handstand, waiting, showing off. Jason ignored the pain in his legs and forced himself to catch up. He heard an eerily sound. The Talon’s laughter. He was having fun.

And Jason? Between his gasps for breath Jason was laughing too.

The Talon flipped on to the next building and climbed up a wall. Jason pushed to keep pace. In the end they were nestled in a clock tower in a secret room that shouldn’t be. It was a simple living quarters bursting with birdcages. Robins. All of them filled with robins.

“Owls keep Robins?”

The Talon leaned into his space and petted Jason’s hair.

“Yes,” Whispered desire. “Do you want to be my Robin?”


End file.
